Asklemmy

I don't have an answer to your exact question but I want to emphasize...

NOTHING in the history of humankind has ever existed like computer data. A 100% identical copy of videos, pictures, and music can be made almost instantly at what is essentially zero cost to the original holder of the data. Any comparison to "stealing" or to a physical object (a car lol) just falls flat because the situation is just so different.

Practically speaking, the world we live in, with computers everywhere, cheap storage, and easy fast internet access for so much of the world, has only been around for about two decades, maybe three. NOTHING like this has ever existed before, and businesses, culture, and laws have been very slow to catch up.

I'm not saying pirating is right or wrong, just that the whole idea is still so new that society hasn't caught up to it yet.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Even if I pay for a product I love some asshole suit is going to get a bigger cut than the artists who did the work.

Give me a reasonably priced, accessible way to enjoy the content and I will happily pay for it.

Streaming has become untenable and now it's neither affordable nor convenient to watch what I want to watch. And with how frequently shows and movies bounce around platforms, who knows if the show I want to watch this weekend will be still available on one if the many platforms I've been paying for.

I'm just done with it.

My philosphy is Buy what you can afford, pirate the rest

I don’t pirate music or games because there are reasonable platforms and pricing models which make pirating more hassle than it’s worth. Shows and movies, on the other hand, are an absolute shitshow to purchase legally.

• Outrageous pricing.

• Declining quality. Especially writing. See Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, and Foundation.

• Content is often unavailable to purchase. See Disney vault.

• Competing streaming services. I’d have to subscribe to six services to access the shows I like.

• Content disappears from services with little notice.

• Studios and platforms have been removing and modifying older content for political reasons.

It’s like they’re trying to make the experience as bad as possible. So fuck ‘em. Thank you Sonarr and Radarr.

I cannot confirm, nor deny.

But, I will say, once upon a time, before the days of netflix, if you wanted to watch things, you needed to spend a fuckload of money, to watch it on cable, with commercials every 10 minutes.... or, you drove to a blockbuster. So, you either did that, or you obtained the movie/tv/etc, via a torrent.

Then, netflix came along, gave you a ton of content, at a reasonable price. And- then, there wasn't really much of an advantage to obtaining media via other alternative means. So, netflix took over by storm, and piracy went way down.

Then, everyone wanted a piece of the action. So, then Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO+, ESPN+, (And insert 50 other network-specific streaming services) jumped into the fray. Then, they all made exclusive streaming contracts. So, if you watch a handful of things, you would need a handful of streaming service subscriptions.

And- again, the alternative option of piracy, became the better option, as you can watch whatever the f- you want, WHENever you want, without having to pay for 50 different subscriptions every month, just to watch a TV series, which they decide to cancel after the 2nd season.

Do you justify?

If the fucking scumbags didn't get greedy in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation. But, no, everyone wanted an extremely generous piece of the pie, and now everything has went to shit again. Fuck those guys. Isn't like the actual actors/writers staring in movies gets any of the money anyways.

If there was a service I could pay like $100-200/mo for and just have every movie and TV show I'd happily pay for it. It doesn't exist, but pirate sites do and they do have every movie and TV show, including tons completely unavailable on any streaming service

GabeN got it right, piracy is a service issue. I haven't pirated a PC game in probably 12 years because steam works great and has basically every PC game I could ask for.

All culture belongs to everyone, therefore should be accessible to everyone.

The sale of goods only concerns those who can and want to afford it.

Sharing is not theft.

Pirates are cool.

I only pirate TVs/Movies. Streaming is in such a shitty state that I don't want to figure out what service is on what, and I'm certainly not going to subscribe for just one thing to watch. I feel no remorse.

You know how writers get paid fuck all for the movies they write? You know how animators are paid criminally low wages for the anime they produce? At the end of the day for most media it's the companies that get all the money, not the artists. Therefore, fuck them, I am pirating your content not contributing to your profit margins.

My justification: nobody has stopped me yet🤷

I spent a decade with streaming services, because for 10 years, it was the best, easiest way to watch what you wanted to watch. I paid a fair price, and studios got a fair cut.

When every studio decided they wanted a bigger cut by extracting more out of my pocket, they intensionally fragmented the market and made me pay an unfair price for an inferior product. They haven't innovated, done more, or produced better TV or movies, they just demand more for the same.

So, I pirate.

I agree with your friend.

If there's a media that I want to continue to exist and similar works to be made, I will buy it. Depending on how much I enjoy it I will wait for a sale or pay full price.

I had to write a research report in university about whether or not piracy hurt or helped the recording industry.

From the research, I found multiple studies that compared brain activity of shoplifters compared to those of pirates. The area of the brain that lit up when stealing physical objects did NOT light up for those who pirated.

Digital piracy is not theft. No one is hurt except for unrealized revenue. But if someone pirates, was that even potential revenue to begin with?

It was also found that piracy allowed for greater reach of content which statistically resulted in more people attending live concerts (think of piracy as free advertisement). Concert attendance led to increase in ticket and merchandise sales.

So overall? Piracy is good. It is only bad if you ignore multiple factors and only focus on short term bottom lines. A net positive.

I dont have any deep philosophy. I do it because its free.

Do you?

Yes

Do you justify?

No

Philosophy?

Mood

Don't pay your employees a livable wage, or use creative accounting to minimise profit and therefore tax payable. don't expect money from me.

Copyright is fucking wierd and an anomaly. It has only existed very recently in all history. Part of the reason we have the works of Shakespeare is due to the fact that there was no copyright then, so taking a part of someone else's work and rehashing into something new was common and innovative. Disney do this with old folk stories, but then they get to "copyright" it? It's abhorrent. It stifles further creativity. Take that horrible weirdo TERF who wrote some wizarding shit. She would have done very nicely without copyright protection. It's not needed. So-called "piracy" is just normal behaviour. Nothing wrong with it.

My time is more valuable than money, but I still pirate. To me it's not about money but principles.
If I pay for something and still can't "own" it, I pirate.
If a generous portion of the money I pay isn't going to the rightful individuals but to our corporate overlords, I pirate.
If my internet freedom is threatened, I pirate.

If someone pirates due to lack of money and one day they have enough, I suggest keep pirating and donate to FOSS and pay to individual creators.

There's nothing morally wrong with stealing from a profit driven corporation as they would (and do) do the same to you at every chance given. At that point it's just healthy competition.

The last games I purchased are Dave the Diver and BG3. Those games have something in common:

1. No DLCs.
2. No DRM.
3. No external launchers.
4. Internet connection is not required to play.
5. Those games are polished, not broken and activelly supported/maintained/updated.

All other titles I simply pirate. Here are my reasons:

1. Runs like trash on day 1.
2. 60-80€ price for a buggy mess.
3. Companies usually under-deliver of what's promised.
4. Has DRM (hurts performance) or requires active internet connection (hello steam deck while I am on a plane) or has additional launcher bullshit.
5. Ubisoft usually copy/paste games (assassins creed, far cry series). I don't want to pay 80€ for a game with a new map and new skins, while everything else is literally the same mess.
6. Not sure if I'd like the game (for 60-80eur). Companies no longer release trials.

Regarding this:

6. Not sure if I'd like the game (for 60-80eur). Companies no longer release trials.

Once upon a time, I pirated Subnautica. Played for 10 minutes and realized "fuck it" and I bought both games. Realised that this is going to be a loooong game for me. No regrets supporting the company - those became one of my favorite games of all time.

For me, paying 20-60 eur (depending on a game) is fine and using Steam is more convenient, but in most cases - piracy is usually more convenient to me. :)

I don't justify it. I stopped caring. That's as evil as it can get, I suppose.

I pirate to seed to y'all in need

I pirate all media I consume and seed terabytes of pirated media every month, proudly. Fuck capitalism, that's my justification.

Big question.

I started pirating when netflix took down a show I just started a couple of days earlier.

It was so easy and so much better that I sticked to it.

I've got hundreds of movies and series within one app. Anytime available. I don't have to pay a treaming services each month just because I want to watch one movie or series.

The price companies charge for a movie is too high. They make too much money out of it. There is too much money in the industry. Some people earn too much. There's too much BS production because it's easy money. They charge more than it's worth to me. They show ads. They want me to buy something and never use it. They start producing series instead of movies because you can make more money out of it, instead of producing one damn good movie. Their intensions differ to much from mine.

A movie that generates a profit of multiple hundreds of million USD does not lead to better production of the next movie. It does not lead to a cheaper price of future or current movies. There's simply a market distortion that doesn't work properly.

There are some people willing to pay 50 bucks per month and there's me. I pay 0. And the markrt is functioning and the companies still make a shitload of money. Seems alright so far.

yes

1. copyright is a deeply flawed system invented by capitalists with moronic consequences for well-intentioned artists today
2. i regularly support musicians i like through bandcamp (especially on bandcamp fridays where they get 100% of the money)
3. i usually do not pirate indie things (but remember that if your only options are piracy or “key reseller” sites, ALWAYS pirate. you are actively costing the devs money if you buy a stolen key from a reseller (and they are all stolen))
4. i’m poor and adobe can choke on my balls

I can afford to buy or subscribe to services but at this point streaming is just more annoying than pirating. With pirating I can use my favorite player (mpv), maximize video quality (high quality blu-ray rips), watch offline, no bugs or buffering, instant seeking et.c. As for games I might pirate a game before buying it but usually I just buy it since it's convenient (unless it has intrusive DRM).

I want the stuff so I get the stuff.

Yes. If I could purchase what I get from piracy (media files with no DRM that I can use as I see fit) for a reasonable price I would do so. Unfortunately this is not a thing and even the compromise of being able to stream doesn't work because all the media companies have decided they need their own services and even then not everything is available. Piracy is just way more convenient.

Back when Netflix was actually decent I actually did stop pirating tv and movies for the most part because there was enough content on there to keep me entertained. Eventually I had to unsubscribe though because it got to the point there was nothing on there I wanted to watch.

Easiest way to obtain media is to pirate, so I pirate it. But also because I hate copyright and patent laws.

Sometimes I pirate media as a trial run. If a get a few chapters into a book or an hour or so into a game and decide I hate it then great, I didn't waste my money. The flip side of this is I have to be honest with myself and shell out when I feel I've gotten enough out of the media. The nice thing is that I get to draw that line for myself rather than some third party arbitrarily telling me how long my trial should last.

I don't pirate, but generally, I don't pay for digital goods either. I'm mostly not a fan of how digital goods are tied to corporate platforms, which could disappear or make changes I don't enjoy. For some digital goods, you can fully download them and back them up to a hard-drive, but I just don't care enough to do that, when I can use FOSS software and Creative Commons songs, e-books etc..

I pirate when it's literally less effort than buying. This mostly applies to E-books. Also I pirate a lot of shows and movies because fuck subscribing to 10 different streaming services.

If I didn't pirate everything, I wouldn't buy it anyway because I don't have money.
I do not purchase any digital content.
If I like some movies enough, I will purchase them on DVD. I like to have something physical.
I'd do likewise with games, if I played any. If it's just download, I am not purchasing it. If it comes on disc/cartridge, sure.

Exception to this is FOSS. FOSS is almost always free in cost, but if possible, I'll donate on it. It is the only digital content I am willing to pay for. That is because it has the chance to benefit other projects. And if I'll ever learn programming, potentially even some of my own.

So my philosophy is: If I couldn't pirate this, would I ignore it or buy it? If it's the latter I buy it, if it's the former I pirate it. Basically if the creator (or distributor or whatever) isn't gonna benefit either way might as well enjoy it. I also exclusively pirate anime because the way streaming currently works is a mess.

For TV shows, I am just fed up with stuff not being available in my country. If you don’t want to sell it to me, I’m not going to pay. Or all the studios having their own streaming services. I pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime. Those were supposed to be the new Blockbuster kind of thing, if you want to fragment the market so much that I’d be paying close to a hundred dollars then it’s simply not something I’d could buy anyway. So if I’m not able to afford it I can just pirate, no customer lost. Also, because it’s fucking easy and often more convenient than streaming services.